How to Make Raw Milk Camembert / Brie Cheese Video (Cheesemaking Part 5)

Today we’re going to make Brie!!!! This cheeses is awesome and delicious. The tricky part is getting all the cultures together. Making Brie at home looks difficult, but looks can be deceiving! This cheese is easier to make than any pressed hard cheese!

Brie and Camembert are the same cheese, the only difference is the size. Brie is traditionally made in large molds and Camembert small molds.

Camembert or Brie gets its outside crust from a mold called penicillum candidum which is added to the milk. Penicillum candidum is a white-mold spore and it thrives in damp cool places. The white covering forms on the cheese after about a week. This cheese is ready to consume in 4-6 weeks.

INGREDIENTS

2 Gallons of Milk
1/4 tsp. Mesophilic II
1/8 tsp. Penicillum candidum powder
1 Smigon of geotrichum candidum powder (optional)
1/4 tsp. Liquid Calf Rennet or 1/2 tablet rennent dissolved in 1/4 cup cool water
1/4 tsp. Calcium Chloride (optional)
Salt. You want a non-iodiozed additive free flake kosher salt. Diamond Crystal KOSHER SALT is a great brand. If you want to buy in bulk at a good price, take a look at SaltWorks.com. I bought a 30 lb bag of there Sonoma kosher salt and was less than $2 a lb.

3.) Add 1/4 tsp. Calcium Chloride (optional). If your milk is from a cow that just calved or is late in lactation or you’re using store bought milk homogenized and pasteurized.

4.) Add Rennet. 1/4 tsp. Liquid Calf Rennet mixed in 1/2 cup of cool filtered water. Stir in well and then stop the milk from moving. Cover pot with lid. Take out thermometer and spoons. Let milk culture and set until solid curd forms. I’ll take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. Do not disturb the milk during this rest. It’ll mess up the curd forming.

5.) Check for clean break. This break will be a softer break than with hard cheeses. Cut curd with a 12″ Curd Knife in 1/2” cubes to make a checkerboard pattern. Let milk heal for 5 to 10 minutes after cutting. (Whey pH should be around 6.3 to 6.45)

6.) Very very gently stir the curds a few times, lifting the bottom curd to the top. The curd can then be poured in a cotton bag (pillowcase) for a pre-draining for 20 minutes or scooped using your skimmer directly in the molds. By draining in a bag, you’ll avoid having to keep refilling your molds. (Whey pH should be about 6.2 PH after draining)

7.) Set up large Tupperware container with a cooling rack on the bottom and bamboo sushi mat and Ripening Mat, fine mesh (optional). Place Camembert molds on mat. Fill molds with curd. Use your Stainless Steel Skimmer.

8.) Let cheese drain for 3-4 hours or when they’re firm enough to handle, flip in the molds. Flipping is important to get an even surface and all sides are evenly formed. Remove excess whey that accumulates under the cooling rack. You don’t want that whey to ever touch the bottom of your draining cheese. Allow cheese to drain for 12-14 hours.

9.) Sprinkle cheese with salt. It’s about 1/2 a tea salt on each side.

10.) Transfer cheese to boxes you’ll use while aging. Place in ripening room between 50-54° F. If temp is below 50° F, white mold will not grow. White mold should appear in 5-7 days. YOU MUST FLIP YOUR CHEESE DAILY. Also, if any excess moisture is in your container, make sure to wipe it up with paper towels. Excess moisture that accumulates in your ripening boxes will inhibit the white mold growth.

11.) Once cheese is fully covered in the white fuzzy mold, in about a week. Wrap each cheese with either plastic wrap, cheese paper, fig leaves or oak leaves (blanch in boiling water and spin water off). This step is important to keep the rind thin, otherwise your rind will be much thicker. Wrapping the cheese also helps form an even white mold crust and pushes down the white fuzzys. CONTINUE TO FLIP CHEESE AT LEAST EVERY OTHER DAY.

12.) The cheese is ready to eat when the center of the cheese feels soft under your pressure. It takes about 3-4 weeks at 50-55° F.

Recipe adapted from Margaret Morris’ Cheesemaking at Home and Homestead Heritage’s Cheese making book.

Good morning, I am ready for making my first “Camembert” tomorrow. I am not sure what temperature is the best for draining in molds- item 8)? Room temperature? Thank you for your reply. Best regards from Prague.

Hi Rashel, You mention wrapping brie in fig leaves. Can you please go into more detail? Two questions; Could I use grape leaves ? And how can I store them so that I can use them to wrap when the fig isn’t in leaf ? I know I can preserve grape leaves in oil ( Dolmades) but will that work to wrap brie in. Many thanks for the excellent suggestion !

I am very impressed by your cheese making videos. Thank you for helping me to understand the cheese making process. I am wondering where you plug the personal size humidifier into when you put it in your cheese cave (wine cooler)? Is the cord just slipped out the door seal to plug in?

Hi Rashel, I just came across you web site and love it ,I’m in Australia and find the conversion a bit of a challenge , I have issues with not much mould growing on camembert any hints? also I have a wine fridge that gives the right temp but can you tell me how to make it a cave with humidity. I would like to buy your book as you explain every thing so well.

I have a question, if you have time to address it and know the answer! I’m wondering, once the Brie gets done…as in it’s soft and ready to eat…how long will it last? If I make several batches…will it be ok if it ages longer, or does it need eaten within a week or two? If I have time I’d love to make it while I have extra good spring/early summer milk and not have to eat it ALL by the end of the summer. LOL

You need to eat the Brie within about 1-2 weeks, no longer. Really in about a week. Another option is to freeze the finished Brie, it freezes really well and you’ll probably not even notice it was frozen. Brie / Camembert is a soft cheese and does not have a long shelf life… you’ll start to see some crazy molds grow on it… and the cheese starts to go up the pH scale alkaline… and can start to foster harmful bacteria. Freeze it if you can’t get to eat it.

I’m finally getting around to trying this today! Just got my cheese cave set up, so yesterday I made cheddar…today Brie. Hopefully I can make a bunch of cheddar while we have milk, and have it all turn out! LOL So nice to have a cheese cave finally, so I can hopefully learn all about hard cheeses. Thanks so much for the cheese tutorials, I’m loving them! :-))

I have a quick question if that’s okay – my camembert stuck to the sushi mats and some of the mould came off my camembert in the flipping process; I am close to wrapping time and I’m wondering if I can wrap them while there is no mould covering that area and will the mould just grow back over? Can you give me some advice please? Thanks heaps!
– David from Australia

I would put the cheese back in the cave and turn it once a day until it heals and forms that mold back on the spot. I had the same issue until I started using plastic mats on top of my sushi mats. Young Camembert will always stick to wood. Check out my video and I explain it. If you don’t want to buy them through a cheesemaking supply… I’ve used the plastic mats you can buy at like a Wal-Mart in the craft section.

It’s best explained in my book, Cheese Making at Home… “Calcium chloride aids in the coagulation of milk when making cheese by dropping the pH slightly and contributing calcium ions.” Cal Chl. is used to coagulate at the beginning and of lactation.

You can read milk chemistry on page 88 of American farmstead Cheese for more information on this. If your cheese is coagulating easily within the time needed and if your pH is dropping as expected during the make… don’t use calcium chloride. Hope that helps.

So glad you like my post 🙂 You know, you can make Camembert and age them in the refrigerator… it’ll just take an extra month. Also, you can buy PVC at Lowes and put holes it in… to make your own mold for more inexpensive 🙂 It’ll work just as well. That’s awesome that you have an extra fridge to convert! That’s perfect 🙂 Thanks for reading!

I’d just like to thank you SO much for these cheese posts! I’ve been doing a little here and there for a while now, but didn’t get to into making hard aged cheese because I had no way to age it. We just moved this year, and now have an extra fridge, so as soon as I can get a thermostate so I can keep it at the right temp, I’m going to delve more into making them! I do know my hubby wants me to make some of this cheese, it’s one of his favorites! Thanks for the instructions I can’t wait till I can get started…just gotta get some of the equipmint and the right cultures/molds! I hope you continue with in depth instructions on different kinds of cheese, it’s so interesting and helpful! :-))

So glad you like my post 🙂 You know, you can make Camembert and age them in the refrigerator… it’ll just take an extra month. Also, you can buy PVC at Lowes and put holes it in… to make your own mold for more inexpensive 🙂 It’ll work just as well. That’s awesome that you have an extra fridge to convert! That’s perfect 🙂 Thanks for reading!

Thanks 🙂 white mold is different than then blue molds. Its not as aggressive to get on everything. If you put it in plastic boxes with holes like I did, you shouldn’t have any problems with it getting on your other cheeses. Just handle that cheese last in your flipping routine.

Also I’m really sensitive to dust and molds. I really have a reaction if it gets in my nose. The camembert mold doesn’t cause any problems, it’s beneficial and I think it’s actually helping my allergy.

Rashel, that is so cool and the process looks pretty straight forward. I’ve never made mold ripened cheeses or blue cheese. Just hard and fresh acid cheeses. I would love to but have always been afraid to since I have mold allergies. So if I got brave and made the Camembert would the white mold infect my cheese cave/wine cooler?

[…] 6. Food challenges. And I’m not talking about those hot dog-eating contests. I’m talking about really challenging recipes that even Julia Childs took awhile to perfect (probably…maybe). I plan on trying my hand at croissants or brie. […]